A fun game you can play on LessWrong is to stop just as you are about to click "comment" and make a prediction for how much karma your comment will receive within the next week. This will provide some quick feedback about how well your karma predictors are working. This exercise will let you know if something is broken. A simpler version is to pick from these three distinct outcomes: Positive karma, 0 karma, negative karma.
What other predictors are this easy to test? Likely candidates match one or more of the following criteria:
- Something we do on a regular (probably daily) basis
- An action that has a clear starting point
- Produces quick, quantifiable feedback (e.g. karma, which is a basic number)
- An action that is extremely malleable so we can take our feedback, make quick adjustments, and run through the whole process again
- An ulterior goal other than merely testing our predictors so we don't get bored (e.g. commenting at LessWrong, which offers communication and learning as ulterior goals)
- Something with a "sticky" history so we can get a good glimpse of our progress over time
My guess: humans are naturally wired to care about what others think; that part of my brain is hugely oversized or overactive.
It's not without its advantages, but there's a tradeoff. I get a huge motivational high when something is well received, but the price I pay is near-depression when something isn't.
Unfortunately the "exchange rate" for me is bad: downvotes are worth about five to ten times what upvotes are.
This approximately matches the impact that positive and negative social exchanges have on people in general in person. (From my recollection of relevant studies read years ago.)